Epis­ode Num­ber: 3×09

Writ­ten by: Jon Crew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 1^st Septem­ber 2024

Guest Stars:

• Com­mand­er Ravenna: Com­mand­er of the Romu­lan war­bird Che­vareth
• Cen­tur­i­on Thameth: Ravenna’s exec­ut­ive officer
• Sub­cen­tur­i­on Thul­mir: Seni­or war­fare officer on the Che­vareth
• Lieu­ten­ant Erak: Helm officer on the Che­vareth
• Sub­lieu­ten­ant Hakama: Juni­or officer on the Che­vareth

I am pre­par­ing to lead a board­ing party to inter­vene dir­ectly aboard the Romu­lan ves­sel Che­vareth. While I would nor­mally nev­er con­sider inter­fer­ing with intern­al polit­ics aboard a non-Star­fleet ves­sel, the new com­mand­ing officer is order­ing actions that are likely to lead to the deaths of hun­dreds of K’si. Jak D’Jak and his fol­low­ers may be fan­at­ic­al fol­low­ers of a reli­gion built on racial superi­or­ity, but that does not auto­mat­ic­ally con­demn them to death.

Cap­tain’s Log: Stard­ate, 9971.4, supplemental

Plot: Cap­tain Mas­uda leads a small board­ing party to the Che­vareth, with the inten­tion of lib­er­at­ing its deposed commander.

The ‘A’ Plot: Jin’s sensors show that around fifty Romu­lan crew­men have beamed aboard the Light of Heav­en in pla­toon-sized groups. The read­ings indic­ate brief battles are tak­ing place in vari­ous loc­a­tions as the intruders meth­od­ic­ally move through the ship in what looks like a for­aging oper­a­tion. At this stage, Che­vareth’s shields are down to facil­it­ate trans­port­er use, with Donak appar­ently rely­ing on her ves­sel’s mal­func­tion­ing cloak­ing device for security.

The cap­tain out­lines her inten­tion to inter­vene in the situ­ation and asks for pro­pos­als. Fol­low­ing a brief dis­cus­sion as to wheth­er they should get involved on the K’si ves­sel itself, they decide the most dir­ect approach will be to lib­er­ate the deposed Romu­lan com­mand­ing officer while the mutin­eers are occupied.

Doc­tor Vale arranges Romu­lan pros­thet­ics with sur­pris­ing speed, while Jin sends an encoded mes­sage back to Thameth say­ing that they’ll beam on to the deck above the brig, and uses the sensor scans to build a detailed plan of the Romu­lan ship. Once they are ready, Valik beams Mas­uda, Par­ish, Vale and James across to the Che­vareth.

They mater­i­al­ise inside what appears to be a small unused hold, and quickly check their dis­guises. As they pre­pare to leave, the door opens and a tall Romu­lan wear­ing the insignia of a cen­tur­i­on appears. Intro­du­cing him­self as Thameth, he invites them to fol­low him. The ever-sus­pi­cious Par­ish pre­cedes the cap­tain through the door, but is not sur­prised to be greeted by half-a-dozen Romu­lan sol­diers car­ry­ing dis­ruptor rifles.

A young woman in an officer­’s uni­form thanks Thameth for his ser­vice, and orders the cap­ture of the intruders. Par­ish reacts quickly, push­ing the cap­tain back through the door, while James shuts it, then shoots the con­trol pan­el to pre­vent the sol­diers break­ing in quickly. Vale uses Jin’s map to loc­ate the access to an engin­eer­ing crawlspace and they escape to the next deck down.

They emerge on the cor­ridor lead­ing to the ship’s brig, where a locked door bars the way to a guard room. Mas­uda, put­ting on an arrog­ant atti­tude, bangs on the door which opens to reveal two young milites. She demands to see the pris­on­er, and they com­ply imme­di­ately, with one lead­ing her and Par­ish through to the cells, and open­ing the door to the com­mand­er­’s cell.

The Romu­lan woman is lying in a foet­al pos­i­tion on the bunk, so Mas­uda, still play­ing the role of a mutin­ous officer, roughly drags her to her feet. Ravenna seems smal­ler in per­son, and her eyes are blood­shot. Mas­uda indic­ates that they are get­ting her out, and she seems to understand.

As they return to the guard room, the second guard seems to have recovered his wits and asks for her author­ity to remove the pris­on­er. Mas­uda reacts by punch­ing him, knock­ing him back across the desk. The first guard promptly shoots her in the back with his dis­ruptor, but Par­ish fires his phaser in return, stun­ning him. James assists the injured cap­tain in her struggle and they knock the second guard uncon­scious. Luck­ily, neither mil­it­us thought to set off the alarm.

Ravenna tells them that some of her loy­al officers are also in the cells, so they release Sub­com­mand­er Thul­mir and Lieu­ten­ant Erak. Thul­mir regards the Fed­er­a­tion con­tin­gent with dis­dain, but agrees to work with them to put his com­mand­er back in charge.

Vale, mean­while, is examin­ing Raven­nna, who seems to be very weak and on the verge of col­lapse. She determ­ines that the Romu­lan is on the edge of nervous col­lapse, and admin­is­ters a calm­ing drug.

Obser­va­tions: Cap­tain Mas­uda and her col­leagues dis­guise them­selves as Romu­lan juni­or officers, as the more seni­or officers will be well known.

A mil­it­us is a con­script recruit, roughly equi­val­ent to a Star­fleet crew­man and the most juni­or rank in the RSN.

Dia­logue: Sub­lieu­ten­ant Hakama to Thameth: “Thank you Cen­tur­i­on. Your ser­vice has been noted and will be taken into account in your trial.”

Ques­tions: Is Cen­tur­i­on Thameth work­ing with the mutin­eers after all?